Chapter 1

My eyes snapped open.

The alarm blared, a shrill, familiar sound.

For a second, I didn' t know where I was.

My bedroom. Sunlight streamed through the curtains.

My heart pounded, a frantic drum against my ribs.

Today.

The date. I fumbled for my phone, screen lighting up.

October 17th. Senior year.

Mock SAT day.

No. It couldn' t be.

This day, this exact day, was the beginning of the end.

A cold dread washed over me, so intense I felt sick.

I remembered the accusations, the smug look on Tiffany Hayes' face.

Chad, my Chad, standing beside her, his arm around her waist.

The shame. My mother' s tears. Her worsening cough.

The endless, crushing weight of a ruined future.

I sat up, my body trembling.

This wasn' t a nightmare.

This was real. Again.

My head spun. How? Why?

It didn' t matter.

I was back.

Back before it all went wrong.

A second chance.

The thought was a tiny spark in a vast darkness.

But the trauma, it was still fresh, still raw.

I could still feel the cold linoleum of the institution floor, the dull ache of despair that never left.

The day Tiffany graduated, the day I...

I shook my head, pushing the memory away.

Not this time.

I wouldn' t let it happen again.

The alarm was still screaming. I slammed my hand down on it.

Silence.

My breath came in ragged gasps.

Mock SAT. The first domino.

If I aced it, like I did before, Tiffany would find a way.

She always found a way.

My mind raced.

I couldn' t repeat my actions.

I couldn' t be valedictorian. I couldn' t be a National Merit Scholar.

Not if it meant that hell again.

A radical, insane idea began to form.

What if I failed?

What if I bombed the mock SAT so badly no one would ever suspect me of being capable of brilliance?

It was crazy.

Everything I' d worked for, my dreams of Ivy League, gone.

But my mother' s life. My father' s. My own sanity.

What were they worth?

Everything.

My fists clenched.

This time, I wouldn' t be the victim.

This time, I would fight.

But not in the way they expected.

I got out of bed, my legs shaky.

I wouldn' t study. I wouldn' t even try.

I would sabotage myself.

It was the only way.

The memory of my mother, pale and weak in a hospital bed, her hand cold in mine, flashed before my eyes.

The stress, the public shaming, it had accelerated her cancer.

No.

Not again.

I looked at myself in the mirror.

Sarah Miller, top student, future Ivy Leaguer.

That girl was dead.

She died with her dreams in another life.

The girl looking back at me was a survivor.

And she would do whatever it took.